Myrtle Beach SC for 2 nights

 Fourth day of driving and now for a 2 day stop in Myrtle Beach State Park, SC.  Feels good to set up for more than one night.  It’s the first time I’ve unhitched and put down the jacks.  

It was a very warm afternoon, getting up into the 60s!  Won’t even get down to freezing tonight.  I put water in the tank today, filled the hot water heater and now we have running hot and cold water.  WooHoo!  I took out a chair (1st time for that too) and sat outside with Skye   She was busy with squirrels.  

In the afternoon we had a walk on the beach.  This was another of those whopper wind days, 15 mph with stronger gusts.  So it’s a good thing it was warm because that wind was not.  Skye had a great time at the beach.  We let her off leash for about an hour.  Very few people around.  Nobody at all when we arrived.

Tomorrow Carlene’s friend will meet us mid day.  We’ll go get some food and propane before then.

Myrtle Beach is quite touristy town, but the State Park is great.  You wouldn’t know it was a tourist town.

Elm City, NC

 We are at the Cavvietta Quarter Horse & Cattle Co in Elm City NC.  It is not snowing here!  It’ll probably rain like crazy later in the night and for a while in the morning.  After that blows across it should be nice again.  Tomorrow we’ll be in Myrtle Beach State Park for 2 nights.   The rain should end there around 3 PM.  That’s to visit Carlene’s friend Louanne who’s here for a few weeks.  No plans yet beyond that.

It was a sunny day most of the way down through Virginia.  Got off to a frosty start, it was 11 degrees this morning!  That’s about as cold as we have ever been on this trip.  I think our old record was 17.  One thing about those cold temperatures, I haven’t needed any ice cubes yet!  Just as well that we didn’t have water on board or the pipes would have been frozen.  We are still using bottles of water.  We fill them every so often, and still have some from home.  I considered putting some water in the  tank in PA and just not running it through the pipes, but the water was cloudy so we decided to wait.  Probably wasn’t used enough in winter.  We are accumulating some dirty dishes!

This horse & cattle ranch looks interesting.  There were some very long-horned cattle in the pasture when we arrived.  They moved off before we could get photos.  Maybe in the morning.  Lots of horses in several pastures and a couple riders in the ring.

This morning sunrise in Aldie. 

That was Christmas at home, it was not supposed to copy into here, but…

The James River

Our campsite

When we went out for a dog walk this mare and yearling came over to check us out. 

That green rain will find us but all that red and blue snow will stay north of us.  If the forecast holds up!

Aldie, VA

 Second day on the road.  No rain, lots of clouds.  Minimal solar charging, so the generator is running.  Going to be 19 tonight so I wanted more power in the batteries.

Quattro Goombas is a winery, brewery and pizza place with a huge parking lot that they share with Harvest Host campers.  One stop shop.  Camp and get pizza with really good beer.  It was over $40 for dinner but we got leftovers with a free campsite for less than we payed last night for a campsite.

The interstate was the usual mediocre viewing down to Harrisburg.  PA sure has a lot of ups & downs.  It feels like more hills than VT.  But then it’s onto US 15 from Harrisburg down past Gettysburg and through MD into VA.  Almost all 4 lane through lots of pastoral settings.  Only a few towns, lots of fields, a big stretch of horse farm country and some big old Southern houses.  With some modern versions of the same.  It keeps the driving interesting.

Some of the day was windy enough that I had both hands on the wheel most of the day and no cruise control.  The rig just kind of jerked around slightly. No big deal but enough to be ready for a gust anytime. And some snow. Mostly in the air.  The roads were clear. 

Tomorrow we were going to southern VA to visit a friend.  But with 3” of snow forecast we are diverting to NC where it’ll just be rain.

The Susquehanna River in Harrisburg 

A Maryland farm

The Potomac River, heading into Virginia

Quatro Goombas, looking into the parking lot. The camper is way out behind the cars

Beer & Pizza!!!!!

Skye needed some attention after dinner

Moon, Saturn and Venus

Saturn is the small spot below the moon.

First day!

Our first campsite.  

The Moon in conjunction with Venus.  About as close as I’ve seen in a long time.  

 We got on the road about 8 AM!  It was a reasonably nice day to drive, we did find some small flurries as we got into New York.  It was expected around the Albany area in the morning but this was near Glens Falls.  It didn’t stick to anything so it was nothing more than a parting shot.

Just two stops on the way to PA, fuel and lunch. We had bright sunshine south of Albany, had to get out the sunglasses.

It was cloudy earlier tonight in Matamoras PA, and cool. Since we’re in a campground we have the electric heater plugged in to supplement the propane heat.  But obviously it cleared off to see the Moon.

Skye isn’t quite settled in yet.  She wants to sit on the couch and lean on me a lot.  She had a good nap all the way down so now she’s mostly bored.  Playing with her toys too.

We’ve made Harvest Host reservations for tomorrow night in Aldie VA.  It’s a frequent stop.  It’ll be more interesting than this cold camp on the riverside.  But not much warmer and no electric heat.

Jonesville, VT

 Home again!

It was a fine journey   11288 miles total, 8000 with the trailer attached  

We parked at 1:49, Skye was in the Huntington River by 2:10   

Milford, NY

It was a bright and sunny day, but as we come north it gets cooler!  We have seen the essence of time travel once again.  A couple days ago it was full leaf foliage on the trees, then thinner and that light spring green color, then lots of buds but little leafing out, now mostly bare trees with some budding.  Going backward in the spring season.  I say that every year because it is impressive to see. 

Tonight we are at the Sunny Acres Swiss Farm.  95 milking head of Brown Swiss with a few Jersey and a couple Holstein mix cow to round out the herd. Plus a few goats, horses and dogs. 

Kyle is a former paramedic and now State Trooper, his wife Sharla does the milking, her mother and grandfather are also involved.  And they have a 1 yr old, Maggie. He invited us into the barn so we watched the milking and met the dogs and goats.  I haven’t been in a milking parlor in a few years now so that was fun. It’s manual applied milking machines for 10 head at a time.  Milking at 4 and 4, so getting up early is normal. But Kyle works 5-5 so everyone is up.  

We had a long walk out back in the fields along the Susquehanna River.  Skye was on leash to keep her dry but she still enjoyed it.  

The horses are pastured just a few feet behind the camper and two of them come over to visit whenever we go outside.  

The farm store has fresh milk, meat, and pies from local sources and other goodies.  The berry pie was very good!

It’s only a couple hundred miles home tomorrow. 

Oh yeah, they have lots of cats.  People still drop off cats at the farm on the presumption that farms can always use another mouser.  Kyle does say they don’t have any mouse problems.  Also don’t have many birds.  

Orrtanna, PA

 It started out as a rainy day, rained fairly hard for a while in Colonial Heights and for a while on the road.  But during the day it let up as we drove away from the rainy area.  It stayed overcast for a long time.  Actually the sun came out at about 6 PM, well after we parked the camper for the night.

We are at another Harvest Host.  Adams County Winery in Orrtanna, PA.  We are fairly close to Gettysburg and came through Emmitsburg MD to get here.  It was our first time in Emmitsburg.  That looks like an interesting little town.  All the downtown buildings have their front steps on the sidewalk, so it all feels very narrow.  Well, the streets are not very wide for real!  It took concentration to keep the trailer between the parked cars and the oncoming traffic!

All pretty quaint considering it’s the home town of FEMA’s Emergency Training Center, the heart of Emergency Management for the US.

Here at the winery they had a big shindig today.  Lots of cars, numerous vendors, live music, even a food truck.  We did some wine sampling and although I thought it was good we didn’t buy anything more.